It wasn't even at Sundance, where she co-wrote and starred in two different hit films, that I realized Brit Marling was going to be a big deal. It was a few weeks later, when Marling popped up on Community as Britta's new "lesbian" friend, that she suddenly seemed to be everywhere. The actress who starred in Another Earth (recently released by Fox Searchlight) and Sound of My Voice (coming later this year) has a bewitching, serene quality about her that made her an instant It Girl at this year's Sundance-- and apparently her appeals have translated well beyond the indie sphere.

According to Vulture, no fewer than three huge names have been after Marling for their films in recent weeks. She apparently passes on a part in Magic Mike, Steven Soderbergh's "Channing Tatum stripper movie" set to star Alex Pettyfer as a younger version of Tatum. And now Robert Redford and Tom Cruise both want her for their respective films, Redford for his movie The Company You Keep in which he'll play a member of the Weather Underground unmasked after years on he lam, and Cruise for One Shot, the vehicle in which he'll play drifter-turned-investigator Jack Reacher. Christopher McQuarrie is the one actually directing that film, before you start entertaining images of Cruise himself knocking on Marling's door.

The reason she turned down Soderbergh is because of a commitment she's already made to her Sound of My Voice collaborator Zal Batmanglij, who is planning an October start for his follow-up The East, though Fox Searchlight still isn't sure they'll fund it unless a major star signs on. But both The Company You Keep and One Shot have September start dates that would also conflict with The East, so if she takes either of them, it might be a sign that The East is not moving forward as planned. Either way, it's interesting to see an actress who recently hit it so big with indie films trying to balance both commitments to her small-scale collaborators and what are probably some very alluring offers from Hollywood. The roles she'll play in any of those films probably won't be as fascinating and well-drawn as what she had to work with in Another Earth and Sound of My Voice, but the paychecks might give her and her collaborators bigger budgets to work with-- and in that case, everybody wins.